Heraclix and Pomp: A Novel of the Fabricated and the Fey Read online

  Why had Mowler created him? Why not someone or something else?

  Why did Mowler choose Pomp to sacrifice to Beelzebub? Did it have to be her?

  And why was Mowler summoning Beelzebub in the first place?

  Was Von Helmutter a crony of Mowler’s? He seemed to know a great deal about sorcery. Was he a customer? A patron?

  Most importantly, what were the origins of the many pieces of Heraclix? He was like a puzzle to himself, an unknown being or beings, self-aware, yet unaware of the individuals from whom he had been constructed. He was familiar with himself, yet his reflection, if he dared to look at it for any length of time, was an enigma wrapped in flesh. Or, more properly, fleshes.

  Reflection shifted to boredom as the paucity of answers became clear to him. He wondered when Pomp would return.

  “Where is she?” he said to himself.

  “She is here!” Pomp said, startling him. She appeared with sheets of folded paper and a book in her arms. “You think too much,” she said.

  “And you spy too much. Perhaps you are right: perhaps I think too much,” he said. “But I have no other way of gaining the insight I seek.”

  “You talk too much, too! Here, read these,” she said, dropping the book and papers to the ground. “They are Mowler’s.”

  “I’m afraid they are no one’s. They were Mowler’s, but Mowler is dead.”

  Pomp looked at Heraclix with a puzzled expression.

  “When he dies, his things, his papers, his book; they are no one’s?”

  Heraclix thought for a moment. “Well, no.”

  “So they are everybody’s?”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “When you die, whose are you?”

  “Me?”

  Pomp nodded. “That big blue eye. Whose is it?”

  “Well . . .” Heraclix stopped. “I don’t know how to answer. It’s part of me, of course.”

  “But whose is it before you are alive? And whose is it after you die?”

  “I don’t know,” Heraclix said. “Maybe these papers will tell us.”

  Heraclix unfolded the papers, quickly read them, and then skimmed through the book.

  Paper 1:

  Good Sir,

  I agree to your terms. I will herewith surrender the goods. Please give me two days to make arrangements.

  In truth, I am,

  Your servant,

  Vladimir Porchenskivik

  Paper 2:

  An ink-colored diagram of a severed human hand, sinistra, painted indigo with death. Each digit, each nail, each nerve and blood vessel is diagrammed, called out, labeled with magical symbols and marginalia that Pomp has no hope of interpreting.

  Paper 3:

  A letter, scripted in handwriting so awkward and clumsy that it is almost unreadable.

  Good Sir,

  I have delivered the hand via courier, a young man from the neighboring village of Bozsok. He is sickly and stooped, a runt, but a good, innocent lad. Do treat him kindly. You can trust him entirely with the necklace, so long as you do not corrupt him. I will expect to receive him at Szalko two weeks from hence with the necklace, after which the remainder of the agreed sum will be sent.

  Again, I am, truly

  Vladimir Porchenskivik

  The Book:

  A wood-covered notebook bound with black and gray locks of human hair. The wood is thin, light in weight, dark in color. The front cover is unadorned, but the back was engraved with a representation of a rectangular tray or box, viewed from above. The tray was full of writhing worms with human faces. Each face was unique—a distinctly individual person, but with the same mouth full of sharpened teeth and the same expression of seething hatred as all the others.

  The frontispiece was a handwritten page bearing the simple title The Worm. The bottom of the page showed a stylized human-faced worm, like the ones on the back cover, but abstracted into more of a sigil than a picture. The work was signed in a large-looped, flowing script by one Octavius Heilliger.

  The bulk of the book was a treatise, mostly in German with an occasional Magyar word or phrase. Heraclix saw that between these sections were indented paragraphs in Latin, Greek, or Arabic. He was surprised by how easily he understood these languages and felt confident in his ability to read and translate them all.

  Among the section headings were “On the Soul of the Homunculus,” “Beyond Life, Beyond Death,” and “The Alchymical Basis for Tissue Restoration.”

  Heraclix browsed the book, flipping past such passages as this:

  “Memory loss is an almost inevitable consequence of wresting the life force from beyond the veil of death, for while the subject may not have yet abandoned all hope at the gates of Hell, he is almost certain to have at least sipped from the waters of the River Lethe, due to the hot, dry exhalations that emanate from the sixth circle of Hell, parching the throat of the newly arrived soul. Thus it is that practitioners of the necromantic arts often find that the extraction of information from the dead, no matter how exquisite the tortures applied, proves frustrating and possibly fruitless. The dead can only relate what they remember. All else is fancy or deception.”

  In the last few pages of the book, he found several symbols, like a swarm of strange black flies, surrounding an illustration of a malproportioned human body. The individual body parts were color-coded, making the grim picture appear far more cheery than he thought it ought to be, given how badly mismatched the parts were with one another, like some awkward children’s painting. It was both grim and beautiful at the same time. Heraclix thought that the cost of producing such a book must be enormous. The author was obviously willing to sacrifice a great deal to have it printed!

  A feeling of familiarity overcame him as he read, not merely a sense of identification, as if he was receiving the information for the first time. Rather, he was confident that he had seen it before, though he could not recall where or when. The color-coded drawing was of him, obviously—or at least of something so much like him as to appear to be a doppelganger.

  “This is me,” Heraclix said.

  “No, this is you,” Pomp said, grabbing one of his fingers with both of her hands.

  “Yes, but this picture shows . . .”

  “What?”

  “Plans.” He paused for a moment. “But when were they made? And by whom? Who is Octavius Heilliger?”

  “You know the name?”

  Now it was Heraclix’s turn to look perplexed. “I don’t know.”

  Pomp began to fidget, impatient to do something other than talk. “So where do we go?”

  “I have so much to learn, it’s hard to say. But we need to start somewhere.”

  The hand, he decided, was the best place to start.

  He looked more closely at the hand than ever before. It was spindly, with long, bony fingers. The color was a deathly steel blue, with dark indigo in its deepest creases. The sickly hue contrasted with the warm flesh-tones of the rest of his body, as if the hand was leeching life from the body—a parasite. Yet, it responded readily to his mental command now, despite its earlier self-actualization, like a devil had possessed it, then left again, turning control back over to the body to which it was attached. And it might be so. He feared what else it might do, who else it might hurt. It was sinister, not only in its left-handedness, but in its disposition as well.

  He held the spidery hand up near his face, carefully examining each vein, the sutures connecting the thin hand to his oversized forearm. Just above the knuckles, across the top of the hand, he saw faint writing, black letters that had been tattooed into the skin so long ago that they had faded almost to invisibility. He moved about in the stable, adjusting himself so that a sliver of evening sunlight shone through onto the hand. He noticed that the letters, garbled as they seemed, resolved into two words superimposed over one another. The original tattoo read, in Serbian, “osvetnik”—“Avenger.” The other, more recent tattoo, appearing over the top of the first, was also written in Serbian
: “mirotvorac”—“peacemaker.”

  Heraclix mulled the words over, pondering the significance of their provenance. Avenger. Peacemaker. More questions.

  He unfolded one of the documents that Pomp had brought with her, the letter, written in German by one Vladimir Porchenskivik. Was this the hand mentioned in the correspondence? He must assume that it was so.

  He opened the illustration of the hand. Looking closely at the diagram, he saw that the artist had indicated with an arrow where the tattoo had been imprinted on the hand, labeling it “osvetnik,” with no indication of the overwritten “mirotvorac.”

  Who was this avenger? And who had superimposed the peacemaker title over the avenger between the time the drawing had been labeled and the hand attached to Heraclix’s arm?

  Only Porchenskivik would know. Somehow, they had to find him.

  But now it was growing dark. It was time to move under cover of the night. He tucked the book and papers in the coin pouch as best he could, put the hood of his cloak up, and they set off.

  The warm glow of the harvest moon shrank into the cold lesser light of the night, causing the cobblestone streets to seem more narrow and confining.

  Heraclix was not the only cloaked one on the streets at this time of night, nor was Pomp the only unseen denizen. Dark eyes peered out from beneath hooded cowls and above razor-embedded walls. All of them noted the stranger in their midst. Heraclix felt them staring at him as he passed.

  A low murmur of voices threaded its way through the streets like a snare being set for prey. It was a tongue unknown to Heraclix—not German, not Magyar, not Serbian, not Turkish. A tongue of man, not of demons, he was somehow sure, though the name or origin of the language escaped him.

  The threatening tone, however, spoke for itself. It prophesied, proclaiming Heraclix and Pomp’s imminent demise: how the fairy would have her wings plucked off and her body used for live fish bait, how the golem would be torn apart at the seams and sold off to Ottoman magicians and trinket shops.

  Even Pomp felt the fear on the air.

  “I don’t think they like us!” she said.

  “I don’t think they like anyone,” Heraclix said.

  The communal voice agreed, growing more bold, more edgy.

  Heraclix heard a slithering sound, as of a hundred daggers drawn in succession. He looked around to see the reflection of silver-tipped knives flashing through the darkness. Slowly, they drew closer, causing Heraclix to spin backwards like a cornered dog.

  “I can save us,” Pomp said.

  “No!” Heraclix said. “There are too many of them.”

  He wheeled around, the circle tightening, closer, possibly within striking distance.

  “I’d rather be fighting Von Helmutter’s men right now,” he said.

  The circle stood static.

  A voice, intelligible—though heavily accented—spoke out.

  “What did you say?” asked a gruff old man.

  “You heard him,” said another—a young woman.

  “Then you must be the one . . .” a young boy said.

  “. . . The one who killed Vorbeck’s son . . .” said another voice.

  “. . . the redhead . . .” yet another.

  A bullseye lamp opened directly into Heraclix’s eyes, temporarily blinding him.

  The hand twitched. Heraclix drew his right arm up to block the light, the left pulsated then calmed at the sound of another voice, that of an old woman whose age had not yet scratched away her soft alto, though her accent was harsh and strange, like the others.

  “Do not be alarmed. You are safe here,” she said.

  At this, the hand relaxed, rubbing its thumb over its fingertips, fingertips over thumb, caressing, soothing itself.

  The lantern was turned from Heraclix’s eyes and partially shuttered, allowing the light to suffuse the area with a gentle glow. After a moment, he could see around himself more clearly.

  He was in an alleyway, like any other alleyway in Vienna, except this one was extremely narrow, more like a cattle chute than a side street. The walls were high, very high, but incomplete. In many places, the skeletal structures of building frames were stripped of covering, rendering the area a labyrinth of timbers and joining plates, a giant, three-dimensional wooden maze full of recesses and cross-shadows.

  The crowd’s daggers slid back into their sheaths.

  “And where is your little friend?” the old woman asked, softly touching his arm.

  “Friend?”

  “Who were you talking to?” came a gruff voice from somewhere in the crowd.

  “Talking to . . . to myself, I suppose.”

  “There was another voice,” someone else in the crowd said, affirming the earlier speaker’s suspicions.

  “Do tell the truth,” the old woman said in a firm voice. “You need not try to deceive us. I know of your little friend. Please, introduce us.”

  “Pomp,” Heraclix said, “I think it is best to show yourself.”

  Pomp, who had been hiding, invisible, under the drape of Heraclix’s cloak, came out from under the fabric and made herself visible.

  “How can you see me?” Pomp said. The scowl on her face belied her frustration.

  A collective squeal of surprise and fear erupted. The crowd jumped back, some drawing their weapons again. The old woman peered closely at Pomp.

  “We are always watching and listening. Always.”

  Then, turning to the group, she addressed her compatriots. “This child, my brothers and sisters,” she said, “is different. She has seen into the abyss. It lingers in her eyes still. She struggles to learn, to understand.”

  “Learn what?” Pomp asked.

  “The great mystery; what lies beyond the black veil.”

  The crowd dispersed, skulking away, slithering like serpents into the nooks and crannies of the neighborhood’s woodwork labyrinth.

  The old woman took Heraclix by the arm and led him through the labyrinth. He was unfamiliar with the maze-like architecture. This unfamiliarity, along with his bulky frame amidst such tight quarters, manifested itself in a wake of bangs, splinters, and broken timbers. Sighs and groans—not Heraclix’s—erupted whenever he passed by, like the frustrated expressions of parents watching a child bungle through a simple task.

  At length the old woman spoke again.

  “You are welcome here, but you should both be very careful if you are to stay with us. My people are wary of strangers and very superstitious.”

  “Then why take us in?” Heraclix asked.

  “You have ended the Vorbeck line.”

  “I did what? I did not mean . . .”

  “Whether you meant to or not, you did,” she said, interrupting him. “Fate moved your hands and justice was done. We will now shelter you, take care of you. It is our privilege and our obligation.”

  “But I don’t even know your name.”

  “Vadoma.”

  “I have never heard such a name. It’s not German, Magyar, or Slavic.”

  “You are not Romani.”

  “Romani? Gypsies?”

  “Depending on who you ask,” she smiled.

  “I thought you had all gone away, after the empress had the laws changed,” Heraclix said. He wondered where the memory had come from immediately after he spoke.

  “Maria Theresa would have liked that. She did everything she could, short of murdering us all in cold blood, to make it so. She took away our horses and wagons—forbidden! She forced our boys into the army, took all our names into their books and lists. They thought they owned us, like pets. They even forbid us to marry each other! What is next? Her death did not even stop the persecution. The emperor wants us all gone, too. Everyone who is not Romani loves him, but he is no better than his mother was to my people.”

  She paused, looking pensive, staring off into the distance, then continued.

  “This is why we are taking you in. Vorbeck, the father of the young man you killed today, was Maria Theresa’s favorite e
nforcer. The man, if I can call him that, was merciless.”

  Again, she looked off into the distance, remembering.

  “But he is gone now. And his last son is gone now, too. Justice has been sent through you.” She smiled, her tiny mouth half full of teeth.

  She led Heraclix and Pomp past a beaded curtain deep within the innards of the wooden fortress. The ceiling was hung with paper lanterns in which candles burned, giving the place a ghostly radiance. In the center of what looked to be a parlor was a table surrounded by several chairs. In the middle of the table were gathered two teacups, a crystal ball on a brass stand, a small opium pipe, and a tiny animal skull of indeterminate origin bristling with horns and a mouth full of long, curved fangs. The air smelled of spices and stale tobacco. Billowing cloths and tapestries lined the room. Some of these were embroidered with symbols that Heraclix identified as having mystical significance, though whether the knowledge had come from his reading of Mowler’s books or from some earlier source, he could not clearly recall.

  “The Mount of Janus, the thaumaturgic triangle, Asmodeus’s tail . . . You are a sorceress.”

  Vadoma looked around the room then laughed. “This? These are all trappings,” she said, sweeping her hands to indicate the tapestries, the table, the entire room. “You forgot to ask me what my name means.”

  “I’m sorry?” Heraclix said, confused.

  “My name. You nave not already forgotten my name, have you?”

  “No, Vadoma.”

  “Good. ‘Vadoma’ is not a noun, it is a verb.”

  Pomp lost interest in the conversation and became distracted by the lanterns, which she flew up to so she could investigate.

  “‘Vadoma’ means ‘to know.’ Some people need trappings. Some will sell their souls for information. Some of us just know.”

  “A soothsayer, then,” Heraclix said.

  Vadoma shook her head. “Soothsayers read the flight of birds and the casting of bones. I need neither.”

  “A prophetess,” Heraclix said.

  “That is closer to the truth. Still, it gives comfort to others to see me use some kind of object or tool—a focus—to prophesy. Sometimes it is their own bodies. Here,” she said, reaching across the table, “give me your hand.”